Food poison memories? Get over it!
An undercooked turkey dinner. A not-so-clean restaurant. A sun drenched sandwich. We’ve all experienced food poisoning at one time or another. Question is – how many of us have sworn off certain cuisine or stopped cooking food correctly in fear of repeating the experience. I know a few stories and I won’t point fingers…. but let’s just say in my family alone I know someone who always cooks chicken to death; someone who refuses to eat Mexican food; someone who shutters at the sight of liver and another who has sworn off seafood all together. I can’t imagine a life of dry chicken, no seafood or Mexican.
But stepping off my high horse, I must admit I have my own weakness and that’s BBQ chicken pizza. One night after a few beers, a friend and I stopped off at a pizza joint in Halifax. It was a dark, hot summer night. Under the heat lamps stood a sad lonely piece of BBQ chicken pizza. In my somewhat hazy state I ordered the final slice. It was mildly warm but still so delicious. Sparing you the details – BBQ chicken pizza and I parted ways, never to be friends again.
Seven years later, I challenged my sub-consciousness and made a BBQ chicken pizza for dinner. I ate a slice. It didn’t kill me. It didn’t bother me in the slightest. Yet for some reason it wasn’t the least bit as delicious as I remembered. Perhaps it was the years of abandonment, maybe it was a poor choice in BBQ sauce. Who knows. But now it’s back on the menu and I’m proud that I didn’t let food poisoning get the best of me. But I do admit next time I’ll go veggie pizza when it’s the middle of the night and there’s only one slice.
